Glee - "Original Song" Review

“All I know is you blew me off to be with Stubbles McCripple Pants.” -Santana

Glee is always most successful when it focuses on the stories and lives of the students as they push toward winning the next competition their Glee club comes across. This particular episode was a return form where Glee reminded of us the potential this show has. There are extremely talented kids on set so it baffles me when the show chooses not to highlight them. I knew we were going to be in for a solid episode when it appeared the focus was going to be largely on the students. However, I never quite felt like the episode fully delivered. It was as if was about to sneeze and then I looked at a light and the sneeze went away. Was my need to sneeze curbed? Yes. But it wasn’t in the most satisfying of ways.

Glee has always done performance episodes so well. But why was this one not as strong as the others? Quite simply, we’re not emotionally attached to anything going on in the club. Before we had so many different issues going on the performances were extremely cathartic. Whether it was Quinn’s pregnancy, Rachel’s love story with Jonathan Groff, or the fact that New Directions was truly an underdog story. I felt that rooting for New Directions was like rooting for Duke. No matter how average they’ve been, we still hear a lot about how great they are and inevitably they win. Now I realize this was New Directions first win at regionals, but did anyone have any real doubt? It just seemed like it would have been really really easy to beat Oral Intensity and The Warblers. They’re nothing compared to how great Vocal Adrenaline was. Yes it was interesting to hear them do original songs, but you can’t honestly tell me that performance was better than the other ones they did. This brings me back to my original point about being emotionally invested in the characters.

Glee realized that they had to play catch up with the Quinn/Finn/Rachel story so they threw it in at the end of last weeks episode and devoted a lot of screen time to it early in this episode. It all seemed so rushed. I just never felt *that* sad for Rachel when she was singing. Finn hasn’t done anything this season to merit that much attention from her. I will give Diana Aragon and Lea Michelle credit for acting the pants of their scene in the auditorium. I really felt honest emotions coming from Quinn as she admitted to Rachel that she was better and that she was going to be the one to get out of Ohio. It’s almost as if Finn was her consolation prize. I wasn’t so sure I was feeling the scene at first because I thought Quinn was being uncharacteristically mean to Rachel, but then she showed us that she was just being brutally honest and sometimes that’s going to sting a little.

Last week I really liked the Santana and Brittany story line because I felt it was came from a real place and presented some very challenging emotions for a teenager. However in this particular episode, they decided to crush all momentum that story line had going. It was simple, but all Santana had to say was “I don’t know what I was thinking.” And there we have it. Don’t be surprised if that story line never comes back. But this just highlights another problem Glee has. I know that emotions of high school students are subject to whims and passing fancies, but changing gears every two episodes really retards any forward momentum and thus we can never fully commiserate with any of the characters. Really the only properly written arc was that of Kurt and Blaine. The writers took their time and fully developed the relationship before culminating it tonight. However, because Dalton Academy is detached from the heart of the show, I felt this story fell flat as well despite the best efforts of Chris Colfer who continues to impress on screen.

It’s not enough to write one good episode, stick at the end and hope that all is forgiven. I think we can apply some lyrics from Rachel’s song to my feelings on the show: “How many times will it take to get it right.” Although I found this episode very enjoyable, I felt it never quite peaked. Glee has a lot of cleaning up to do and I’m not so sure they’re going to start the process anytime soon. I think we’re going to have to be ok with the lack of character development and choppy plot if we are going to enjoy the show going forward.

Other thoughts:

I was happy to see the show realize The Warblers really was just the Blaine show. Even Kurt realized it, and Kurt knows best. However, even though they acknowledged their problem, they sang a duet and went right back to it being Blaine singing Pink with the Pips.

I need to applaud Glee for letting the kids struggle with songwriting at first. One of my complaints with the show is that the students are so great at everything they do the first time around. So it was nice to see the development process for once. It allowed us to see Will do some real teaching, even though he blew it by telling the students to write a song based on a title they came up with.

Speaking of the songs in development, I’m going to have to disagree with Finn. I think “My Headband” > “Only Child.” If I’m rating some of these original songs, I say “Big Ass Heart” has the most potential. “Hell to the No” is poppy and catchy but comes off as a rip off of High School Musical. “Only Child” is emotional, but lacks depth. “Trouty Mouth” has a high ceiling but it could be too one note.

I realize Oral Intensity was terrible but I knew one of the dancers so I was strangely entertained. I worked with Ashley Galvan last year and I always get excited when I see my friends get work on TV.

Kurt’s line “There doing original songs” was extremely necessary, because I wouldn’t have been able to tell if Rachel’s song was currently a single or original.

Brittany line of the week: “My headband.” If you didn’t laugh when Brittany said her favorite was “My Headband” show yourself so I can shake my head disapprovingly at you.